1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for making alcohol-containing spherical food and drink products. It further relates to small, encapsulated liquid beads that can be mass-produced, made in advance, stored and used as needed.
2. Relevant Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,507,327 discusses a method for making alcohol beads that after initial formation soaks the beads in water and allows alcohol to transfer through its outer membrane. The end product should not exhibit the quality, firmness, and shelf life of this invention, however. Those beads serve as more of a ‘temporary enclosure“. The liquid/water in them is apt to ooze out. To prevent such oozing, a bit of flavor and a thickening agent is added for preserving them in a state of aggregation by immersion in the same kind of liquid.
WO Patent Application No. 2009022909 describes a bead manufacturing process without detailing actual alcohol spherification. And WO Patent Application No. 2011138478 describes a way to spherify carbonated beverages, focusing on wine, sparkling wine and champagne. They do not elaborate on bead size or utility and their simplistic production method will likely result in smaller, poorer quality beads, inconsistent in size, and with a short shelf life.
European Patent Application No. 1,629,722 discloses a plurality of gelled (i.e. solid) beads but with no liquid dispersion inside. Such beads do not contain alcohol. Rather, they are intended as food product additives, including during fruit preparation, in yogurts, or as an ice cream topping.
Finally, there is the method for preparing alginate-based compositions from U.S. Published Application No. 20120269927. That method teaches creating a gelatinous alcohol ball (or rounded “Jello® shot”), almost instantaneously, at the bar. It combines alcohol with alginate and drops that mixture into a calcium bath.
The present invention differs from the earlier known method in several key aspects. First, alcoholic encapsulation is accomplished by distinctly different means.
The prior art (whose end product is schematically shown at FIG. 1), mixes alcohol with an alginate to make a first composition. In front of the end consumer, a bartender adds that first composition to a multivalent salt (second composition) for turning that whole concoction into a Jello®-like ball. Even the inside of that sphere gets “gel-ified”. By contrast, the present invention mixes alcohol with a multivalent salt before surrounding the same with an alginate liquid (the order of mixing being critical). The process does not “gel-ify” throughout, but rather creates a thin outer layer that surrounds the liquid-y alcohol center. In other words, the inside contents of these spheres remain physically unchanged (per FIG. 2).
Through different encapsulation means, different end product results. Unlike the fully gelled Jello® spheres of the prior art (FIG. 1) that measure 1.1 to 8 cm wide (and more typically 3 inches in diameter), the round beads of this process (less than 1.1 cm wide) are little alcoholic balls that can be popped like a bubble when bitten thus creating a totally different experience and feel. See, FIG. 2. The bead/spheres of this invention are not Jello-like. Rather, they are meant to encapsulate alcoholic liquid in little spheres.
Further, this invention describes an alcohol encapsulation that when aggregated together, forms large quantities of alcohol encapsulations that are: (a) uniform in shape, (b) consistent in the thickness of the shell, (c) consistent in the quality of the ‘popping’ sensation that a consumer would experience, and (d) efficiently mass-produced. The method for using machinery to mass-produce such alcohol encapsulations is also described herein.
Finally, the spirit (pun intended) of these two methods are quite distinct. The prior art method makes large, fully gelled alcoholic balls, in situ, or directly in front of the consumer by a bartender or waitstaff. That is because the other method for making true Jello® shots is too time consuming and cannot be easily customized. The present invention, by contrast, makes product that can be manufactured in bulk, well in advance, in a separate (more sterile) factory setting, using the equipment/machinery described below, and then stored for prolonged periods (a year, even longer) before being sold and shipped to bars and restaurants for consumption as needed. In addition, the beads/spheres of this invention can be served at varying temperatures: from frozen, to slightly chilled, to room temperature, warm and even quite hot. As such, the end product of this invention can be USED by anyone, not just specialized bartenders and cocktail makers, almost anywhere, even in their own homes.